Control car VS 235

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Our railcar VT1 can be controlled from the control car VS 235. This avoids the shunting at the terminal stations. Photo (Dieringhausen freight station, 23-feb-2004): Ulrich CleesDriving Trailer VS 235
The driving trailer comes from a series of railcars built by Maschinenfabrik Esslingen (Esslingen Machine Works). It was not the first vehicle of this design in the upper Berg county. So let us  first have a look back:

Railcar VT 33 of the local (private) railway from Bielstein to Waldbröl

You have to think back to the post war era to be able to imagine the significance of the innovation the  Esslingen Machine Works was developing in the early nineteen-fifties: On the Wiehltalbahn passengers boarded steam trains with carriages from the pre-war era in Waldbröl - they were called "thunder cans" - and that's what they were! It was not until 1955 that two-axle railcars of the VT 95 type were employed in the Wiehl valley and in the course of the years they took over more and more passenger services from the steam trains. 1)

The situation was different in the station of the narrow-gauge Rhein-Sieg Eisenbahn (Rhine-Sieg Railway) and in the station of the local railway from Bielstein to Waldbröl, which adjoined the federal railway station (the present station of the Wiehltalbahn): There one could already board modern railcars in the nineteen-thirtees. Both railways had already transferred most of the traffic to these versatile railcars before the war. And in 1951 the local railway from Bielstein to Waldbröl even increased passenger comfort by adding the four-axle railcar VT 33 (a modern railcar of the Esslingen machine works) to their two-axle rolling stock. Even the DB passengers could catch sight of it: In Waldbröl the railcars departed from the DB platform, then via Bielstein at the other end of the local railway and onto DB track (the Wiehltalbahn, among others) up to the district town of Gummersbach.

In an era when the DB was still committed to two-axle railcars, the Esslingen machine works built two types of railcars for privately owned railwayss - altogether 31 railcars, 9 trailers and 10 driving trailers. The VT 33 of the local railway from Bielstein to Waldbröl was one of the first "Esslingen railcars" and a modern vehicle from an technical point of view, but the innards were rather old-fashioned: While some other railways ordered padded seats the passengers of the local railway had to sit on wooden slatted seats. This was no improvement over the thunderboxes the steam locomotives "Waldbröl" and "Bielstein" had hauled before. At least one could sit in wide, large capacity compartments and the sense of spaciousness was increased by glass panes in the partition walls. It was not before the nineties that DB equipped their vehicles for local traffic (the so called "Silver dollars") with such glass pane partitions.

That's how the inside of a VT 33 looked like: timber seats in wide, large capacity compartments. Photo: Slg. Kurt StrackeAfter the abandonment of passenger traffic on the local railway in 1957 the VT 33 went to the "Osthannoverschen Eisenbahnen AG (OHE) (East Hanover Railway)" and was scrapped - one year after passenger traffic was abandoned there as well - in September 1978. 2)

Trailer VB 223

Decades had to pass before "Esslingers" came to the upper Berg county again. For special trains in the Wiehl valley  we  had already hired MAN railcars from the Rhine-Sieg-Railway (RSE)  several times and therefore came sporadically came to the Wiehl valley. This was no long-term solution - the transfer of vehicles from Bonn-Beuel was complex and expensive. So we rented the RSE's MAN railcar VT7 for a longer period in 2001, before the WB WiehltalBahn GmbH finally bought it and renamed it to VT 1 after a general inspection. Together with the VT 7 we rented the Eslingen type trailer VB 223, a vehicle from the second series. On the 4th of March 2001 we transferred both vehicles as a public special train from Bonn-Beuel to Wiehl - not without having travelled on the home track of the Rhine-Sieg-Railway in Bonn.

First "Esslingen railcar" on the new Wiehltalbahn was the VB 223 of the Rhein-Sieg-Eisenbahn. As it didn't have a control unit the railcar always had to drive around it - like VT 7 does it here in Osberghsausen. Photo: Ulrich Clees The trailer immediately tripled our seating capacity to roughly 200 seats. It served us well and ran in the Wiehl valley and to Gummersbach. It was also hauled by  50 3610 of the Dieringhausen Railway Museum in the first steam train to Oberwiehl in the modern era of the Wiehltalbahn on October 28th. 2001. However it had a significant shortcoming: It was a pure trailer and the railcar couldn't be controlled from it. So we had to shunt at the end of each trip but the DB had lifted lots of run-round loops from the track. Even if shunting switches are available, however,  shunting is still time consuming. So the WB WiehltalBahn GmbH gratefully took the opportunity to buy a driving trailer that is able to control our railcar. This way railcar and control car can stay coupled and so can shuttle to and from village fairs for instance.

Driving trailer VS 235

Hans-Peter Gladtfeld took this photo of the VS235 on May, 25th, 1979 in Oberrottweil on the "Kaiserstuhlbahn (emperor's chair railway)". Here the end of the wagon housing the control unit is shown. This driving trailer has had a varied history (see abstract below). At one end of the vehicle is  a control unit from where a railcar can be driven. Luckily it was immediately compatible with our railcar from a technical point of view. It is an incongruous pairung as a low, short railcar pushes a higher, nearly twice as long driving trailer. One can easily be confused...

In contrast, here the end of the wagon without control unit is shown. Photo (Endingen, Oct. 2007): Hans-Peter Gladtfeld

The control unit on the taking over of the vehicle from the "Rheinhessische Eisenbahngesellschaft". Photo: Ulrich Clees

The large capacity compartment with its little desks at the seats of the driving trailer VS 235(1959) is especially popular with groups - here on a birthday party. Photo (03-jul-2004): Ulrich CleesLike VB 223 it comes from the second type of "Esslingers" and also looks more modern than the railcar of the local railway from Bielstein to Waldbröl. Naturally it has upholstered  seats and, since their time with Wolfgang Kissel,  tables between the seats. Because of the tables and the ample space it hs become especially popular with groups who like to charter it for trips both within and  outside the Wiehl valley.

Driving Trailer VS 235 gets hauled into the Wiehl valley on 11-apr-2004. Afterwards the ride goes on to a handball match. Photo: Ulrich CleesUnder our management the driving trailer has already seen a lot of the world: Of course its  main field of operation is the Wiehltalbahn including the line to Dieringhausen, but we have also already taken it to Aachen, Wuppertal, Hagen, Koblenz and Münster.

VS235 and VT1 on 14-oct-2007 at Weiershagen. Photo: Ulrich CleesIt lost its orange-white-blue painting from the SWEG period because of a severe graffiti attack. Subsequently a white  undercoat was applied. The staff already call it the "White sausage" (a reference to the Bavarian delicacy!), but it is planned to paint it in an more acceptable manner: in the same red colour that it had when it was put onto the rails in 1959 and that was typical for local railways. That way it would also  match perfectly  the steam train of the Dieringhausen Railway Museum.

Technical data for the "Esslingers" in the upper Berg county

Running  numbers:	VT 33	VB 223	VS 235
Types:	railcar	trailer	driving trailer
Origin:		Deutsche Eisenbahn-Betriebs-Gesellschaft (DEBG), Südwestdeutsche Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft mbH, Südwestdeutsche Verkehrs-AG (SWEG) VB 223 (1958 until June 1998)	Kleinbahn-AG KIel Schönberg, Kiel-Schönberger Eisenbahn AG (KSchE) VS 162, VB 162 (1959 until 19.01.1976) Südwestdeutsche Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft mbH, Südwestdeutsche Verkehrs-AG (SWEG) VS 235 (19-jan-1976 until July 2000) Verkehrsbetriebe Wolfgang Kissel (VBK) VS 235 (July 2000 until 2003)
Owners in the upper Berg county:	local railway "Bielstein-Waldbröl" (since 1951: Oberbergische Verkehrs-AG (OVAG))	Rhein-Sieg-Eisenbahn (RSE) VB 223 (June 1998 until 2006), occasionally chartered by WB WiehltalBahn GmbH	WB WiehltalBahn GmbH VS 235 (since 13-jun-2003 in the Wiehl valley)
In the upper Berg county:	1951 until 1957	04.03.2001 at least until 2003	since 13-jun-2003
Fate:	Osthannoversche Eisenbahnen AG DT 519  scrapped there in September 1978	Chiemgauer Lokalbahn VB 223 (2006 until 2010) Wiesböck logistic VB 223 (since 2010)
Manufacturer:	Esslingen Machine Works	Esslingen Machine Works	Esslingen Machine Works
Year of manufacture:	1951	1958	1959
Serial numbers:	23372	25059	25264
Wheel arrangement:	(1A)`(1A)`	2`2`	2`2`
Top speeds:	80 km/h (50 mph)	85 km/h (53 mph)	85 km/h (53 mph)
Weights:	31 tons 6 cwt.	25 tons 6 cwt.	26 tons 5.5 cwt
Nuber of seats (1st/2nd class)	8 / 78 (+ 7 fold-down seats)	- / 126	- / 122
Net power:	2 x 110 kW (2 x 147 hp)

Source: Estler, Esslinger Triebwagen

Sources: 

1) Klaus Strack: Die Wiehltalbahn Osberghausen - Waldbröl. In: Arbeitskreis Oberbergische Eisenbahngeschichte: Eisenbahnen im Oberbergischen. Nümbrecht 2005, S.129. [= Strack in Eisenbahnen im Oberbergischen]

2) Thomas Estler: Esslinger Triebwagen. 12202, S. 62f. [=Estler, Esslinger Triebwagen]